Meow!
Having devoted an earlier acrostic to dogs, we felt that we owed cats (and cat lovers) equal time. And as with the earlier offering, it proved reasonably easy to include lots of words and phrases evocative of our animal friends.
We drew the quotation at the heart of this week’s puzzle from a 2013 book by Mieschelle Nagelschneider, a “cat behaviorist” who founded the Cat Behavior Clinic in Portland, Oregon. Among other things, The Cat Whisperer debunks a number of myths about cats. As the quotation makes clear, cats – despite abundant evidence to the contrary – do not deliberately manipulate their owners or behave like Garfield.
And speaking of Garfield, we learned a fun fact in researching clues and answers for this acrostic: that the comic strip that bears his name is set in Indiana. Perhaps some of you knew that Garfield, Jon, Odie, and the rest of the cast are Hoosiers.
In addition to comic strips, of course, one can find cats in countless novels, movies, and plays. The image above from The Godfather [as in Answer C.] has a curious backstory. The cat on Marlon Brando’s lap was a stray who strolled onto the set. Brando scooped him up unscripted, as it were, and proceeded with the shooting of the scene. Apparently, the cat purred so loudly that it almost interfered with the audio track!
For this week’s video, we are compelled to ask what T.S. Eliot [see Answer Y.] – author of the book of poems Old Possum’s Book of Practical [Answer V.!] Cats – would have thought of this number from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical adaptation, Cats:
Loved the clue and answer: “Products of some hacking”! Brilliant!
Great fun, as always.
My guess is that Eliot would have been underwhelmed by the aesthetic merit of the “Cats” musical, let alone the film version. But I doubt he would have sneezed at the estimated $100 million in royalties that franchise has pulled in. After the death of his second wife, Valerie (his sole heir) this fortune has been funding worthy projects in the arts.
I love the way this acrostic, like many, has clues that are just at the periphery of my knowledge or memory. Sure, I read Born Free as a kid. Who didn’t? But I just couldn’t remember the last name of the author, or the name of the orphaned cub. But after one or two backfilled letters, both names came back to me.
On the three-syllable foot, was it an anapest? A tribrach? (Both too long.) Again, getting the backfilled D as the first letter made the penny drop.
Lots of nice related clues. B, H (Cat on a…), J, K (Garfield remains consistently unfunny, but still …), N, O, Q, S, V (“Practical Cats”), Y, and Z (as in cat’s claws).
In solving the puzzle, I got the A-L clues faster, and I saw the name “Nagel.” I thought the author had to be the prominent philosopher, Thomas Nagel. As the quote became clearer about its topic (what cats think about, or, more accurately, don’t think), I became convinced the author was indeed Mr. Nagel, who had written a famous essay in 1974 called “What is it like to be a bat?” (doubting whether we, as humans, could ever know what it’s like to be a bat.)
I was, of course, barking up the wrong tree, but it is interesting that the quote itself, exploring the psyche of the cat, is related to Nagel‘s topic.
By the way, when I read that marvelous quote to my wife, who had two wonderful cats for years, she disagreed. She said when one of her cats missed a jump, they would often make some set of of gestures that suggested “yeah, I intended that” or “nothing to see here” or actions otherwise suggesting a level of chagrin st the screw-up.
I really enjoyed this delightful romp, after your last acrostic had me on the ropes for a good while. As always, you’re incorporating the theme into the clues and answers made for extra fun. My favorites were the reference to Eliot’s practical cats and the surprise at how to go for extra stealth. Thank you.
Well done way to fit in a litter box.
Nice Acrostic.
As someone who has lived with cats most of my life, thanks to a brother who preferred cats to dogs, a wife who was a cat fancier, and a daughter who is teetering on the precipice of becoming a cat lady (but who owns a fine standard poodle), I enjoyed this puzzle. I have lived with a number of cats named after characters from Moby Dick: Ishmael, Queegqueg, Tashtego, and Starbuck. I didn’t pick up on the feline theme until I got to ELIOT. Then it was fun sussing out the cat references. The plethora of long, and in some cases unusual, words in the quote (CALCULATEDLY, AFORETHOUGHT) added a bit of difficulty. In the end, though, this acrostic was the cat’s meow.
Clue S: LOL. Very clever.
This was a fun one. I loved “Born Free” when I was young, and I remembered the cub’s name right away, though I had to solve my way into recalling Joy’s last name.
Thank you!
My late Significant Other was a cat lady and worked hard to convince me that the disdain that cats showed me was all my fault. As a dog person, I refused to believe that. She would have loved this puzzle.
Just wanted to say — thank you SO-O-O much for doing this blog, which I just discovered.